> This is different from Bitcoin's idea of decentralizing
Libra is Facebook Credits [1] rebooted. All that changed is the meme it’s attaching to, “cryptocurrency” being better at suspending consumers’ scepticism.
Libra is Facebook Credits [1] rebooted. All that changed is the meme it’s attaching to, “cryptocurrency” being better at suspending consumers’ scepticism.
My posting history will show I'm skeptical of Facebook but setting my biases aside, I think there's still a real technical difference here.
I believe the old Facebook Credits required the transactions to go through Facebook's centralized servers. (The programming api for processing Facebook Credits communicated with Facebook's servers.) This would be similar to a customer holding Marriott Hotel points and she wants to give them to a friend; she would have to call up Marriott customer service and have them transfer the credits/points from her account to someone else's. The transactions can't happen without Facebook and Marriott getting involved. That's fundamentally different from Libra since its transactions are validated by external partner nodes.
Therefore, the Libra isn't a cryptocurrency in just a "meme" bandwagon sense; it's actually designed for decentralized transactions that don't require centralized Facebook servers.
Whether the public (and merchants accepting payments) finds that technical difference of any value and massively adopts it, I don't know.
So it's not going to be Facebook's centralized servers, but Facebook + their friend's centralized servers. There are some vague promises, but this will start out just as centralized as Facebook Credits.
https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/11394299139229573...
> To ensure that Libra is truly open and always operates in the best interest of its users, our ambition is for the Libra network to become permissionless. The challenge is that as of today we do not believe that there is a proven solution that can deliver the scale, stability, and security needed to support billions of people and transactions across the globe through a permissionless network. One of the association’s directives will be to work with the community to research and implement this transition, which will begin within five years of the public launch of the Libra Blockchain and ecosystem.
“Facebook is expected to maintain a leadership role [in the Association] through 2019.” The Association (“an independent, not-for-profit membership organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland”) holds title to the reserves, has a monopoly on coin minting and destruction, and has sole determination over new Association members (who each get one vote).
It’s Facebook Credits with co-branding.
Absolutely not. As someone heavily involved in social gaming and related payment solutions at the time, Facebook Credits were only intended for one-way transactions, from users to game publishers, with Facebook getting a 30% cut. You weren't able to transfer these credits to other users, so it was never any form of real currency.